


The Gala

by taylor_tut



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers Family, Clint Barton Is a Good Bro, Domestic Avengers, Gen, Natasha Romanov Is a Good Bro, Precious Peter Parker, Protective Avengers, Sick Character, Sick Tony Stark, Sickfic, Team as Family, Tony Has Issues, Tony Stark Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-31
Updated: 2018-06-04
Packaged: 2019-05-16 11:45:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14810729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taylor_tut/pseuds/taylor_tut
Summary: Tony gets a chest infection but doesn't want that to keep him from hosting the one event he never misses: the Maria Stark Gala.  The Avengers help him out.





	1. Chapter 1

The Maria Stark Gala was the single event that Tony refused to miss for anything.

The third year he’d hosted, it had been through a snowstorm so severe that the few guests that had managed to attend had been stuck there for several hours longer than expected (but hey, at least there was an astounding amount of champagne). Two years after that, Stark Industries had taken a massive stock market hit and Pepper had begged him to cancel the gala, but he’d hosted anyway, even if he’d been on the phone most of the night trying to fight theoretical fires in his company. And just last year, the Avengers had been called to assemble halfway through, so he’d kicked ass as fast as he could and went back to the gala with a black eye and a bloody nose.

Nothing could keep Tony Stark from his mother’s honorary gala.

Apparently, not even what would turn out to be a severe chest infection.

 

Peter Parker was so excited to go to his first Gala that May couldn’t even get him to sit still long enough to take his picture.

“Remember,” she told him as she straightened out his bowtie, “no drinking--not even a glass of champagne. Peter rolled his eyes.

“I know; I know,” he said. She was dressed for work despite being invited to the gala--Tony had even offered to pay her night’s wage if it was a financial issue, but May maintained that it wasn’t the kind of place she’d feel comfortable. She’d only embarrass Peter, she’d said, and only laughed when Tony told her that was half of why she’d gotten an invitation. “I wish you were going,” Peter told her sincerely. “I’ll miss you.”

“Go have fun,” she told him, watching him wave from Happy’s car window. “Take lots of pictures!” 

 

The party was in full swing when Peter arrived--they’d hit traffic on the freeway. Peter looked around for Tony, but instead, found Clint. 

“Hey, SpiderKid made it,” he greeted. Everyone was more relaxed than Peter had ever seen them, and Peter bumped his offered fist. 

“Hey, Mr. Barton,” Peter said. He looked around, noting with some disappointment that Tony was nowhere to be seen--he’d fought with him because Tony expected him to slick back his hair and Peter refused, but he wanted to show that he’d finally caved and done it. “Is Mr. Stark here yet?” He’d had several days off the internship for finals and then a few more as Tony prepared for the gala, so it had been a while since he’d seen him at all.

“He’s been here since they set up,” Barton said, “but it’s been a while since I’ve seen him. What time is it?” he asked, pulling his phone out of his pocket and paling immediately upon looking at the screen.

“What’s wrong?” Peter asked as quietly as he could despite the nervousness in his voice. 

“Stark left me three voicemails in the past ten minutes,” he said urgently. His phone was already up to his ear, and within a moment, he was bolting from the room and into the hallway outside of the ballroom.

Peter didn’t know what else to do except follow him as Clint hurried through the hall. 

“What happened?” Peter asked anxiously. “Is Mr. Stark okay?”

Clint bit the inside of his cheek. “Not sure,” he admitted. “He asked me to come find him.” Finally, they reached the room that led into a fancy waiting room of sorts outside of the bathrooms that Peter didn’t quite understand the purpose of having.  Clint knocked three times sharply on the door to the bathroom itself.

“Tony?” Clint called, “you in there?”

When nothing but the sound of coughing answered him, Clint picked the lock and opened the door with frighteningly little effort. They found Tony leaning against the sink heavily on one hand, coughing harshly into the other.

“Tony?” Clint asked, locking the door behind the three--Peter was glad not to be locked out; it could have gone either way, he knew--and stepping forward. “Can you breathe? Is it the arc reactor? Some kind of poison?” 

Tony shook his head through the whole line of questioning, waved his hand as if to reassure them. 

“Just a cold,” Tony said, and Clint frowned.

“A cold?”

Tony nodded, coughed a few more times, then took a breath. “Yeah. But they always go to my chest like this,” he explained. “Even before the reactor, but especially now.”

Peter’s eyebrows furrowed. “Do you need to go home?” he asked. “I’m sure someone else can handle your speech.”

“No can do, Pete,” Tony shook his head, coughing a few more times with just the short sentence. “I never miss this one. Not an option.”

Peter rolled his eyes. “I know you’re aiming for perfect attendance,” he started, but--”

“--I said no, kid,” Tony said pointedly, “I don’t miss the Maria Stark Gala. Especially not for something stupid.”

Clint put his hand on Peter’s shoulder to keep him from arguing again.

“Okay,” Clint said, somehow grasping Tony’s strange conviction to power through, “well then, let’s get back out there.”

As Clint and Peter stood, Tony threw out a hand to stop them, still seemingly fighting to take even breaths. “Caveat,” he warned.

“There always is,” Clint huffed. 

“I don’t want the press finding out.”

Clint looked vaguely pissed. “You’re worried that the press will, what, leak that you’re human?” Tony set his jaw but didn’t say a word. “You know, they’d probably spin it positively, especially with a little nudge from one of your PR reps. That you care enough to push through the Gala even when you’re not 100%.”

Tony glared. “Well, this is the one event that I don’t want all the eyes on me, alright?” he bit. “Just… can I ask you two to get me through tonight?”

 

Turns out, he could ask a lot more than just Clint and Peter to get him through the night.

By the time they were back in the ballroom, Natasha, Stephen, and Quill had blocked off a corner subtly hidden away from the press with one open seat in the corner for Tony to sit.

“Oof, Clint wasn’t lying when he said you were in bad shape,”  Quill frowned.

Tony rolled his eyes and didn’t say anything, but he knew that Peter was right--he was pretty clearly dying. Despite knowing that the ballroom was probably pretty warm, he felt himself shivering noticeably, the fever doubtlessly climbing. 

“Are you cold?” Strange asked, already knowing the answer. 

“Freezing,” Tony relied. Stephen took off his suit coat and set it over Tony’s shoulders. It didn’t do much, but he was grateful, anyway. 

He mumbled out a “thanks” and was grateful when the others didn’t make a big deal out of it. He muffled a long, painful cough into his sleeve. 

“Don’t you have to give a speech later tonight?” Natasha asked, rubbing small circles in his back when the coughing didn’t subside. 

“Oh, shit,” Tony cursed, “I forgot.” Peter Parker came back with a glass without Tony even realizing that he’d left, and he took the water gratefully. His voice was already near shot, and it was still early.

Peter smiled deviously. “Shuri’s here, right?” he verified, and Clint nodded. “She and I can handle it.”

Tony saluted as he left. “Don’t set anything on fire,” he called after him, regretting it as the shouted words caught in his throat painfully. 

As the rest of the Avengers chatted, Tony was quiet. His chin was balancing on his palm, barely awake. He didn’t register when Peter came back some time later, and all he gathered from the long, excited explanation of how they killed the sound system was that Tony didn’t have to make a speech, after all.

“Thanks, kid,” Tony muttered groggily, cutting him off, “but can we just--details later. Not into it right now.” 

Natasha leaned forward, the hand that rested on his back flitting to his cheek worriedly.

“You’re really starting to cook, Stark,” she fretted. “You know that the smart thing would be to get out of here.”

“I told you; I’m staying,” Tony argued. 

Cint pushed his water toward Tony. “You showed up,” he tried, “and you’ve been here the whole night. What does it matter if you duck out early?”

Tony glared weakly. “It’s my mom’s event,” he said, “I owe her this.”

And there it was. Tony Stark was and always had been what he gave to people. Gifts, money, time; that’s what he knew. Leaving early would be to say “I loved you 26 years and a flu-bug long, and then it wasn’t a priority.” Because grief was a receipt that you’d lost something, and if you let yourself heal, how much could you really have cared about it? Everything in Tony’s life had been so many shades of fucked up that Peter didn’t know how to even begin to undo the coiled, protected damage he held tightly to, but he did know he wasn’t going to do it in a night, and he wasn’t going to do it with Tony this sick, so he’d just have to do what he could to indulge him. They all would.

“Maybe splashing some water on your face might help,” Clint suggested. “You look rough.”

Tony slid his eyes closed and nodded. “But the bathroom is far,” he whined, “and what if someone tries to talk to me?”

Relatable, Peter thought, if for the wrong reasons. 

He webbed Clint’s hand and jerked it forward so that he knocked the glass of champagne onto Peter’s shirt.

“Oh, no, what a terrible accident,” Peter hammed, “Mr. Stark, come be a paternal figure in front of the press and teach me to get a stain out of a tux.”

Natasha bit down on a smile and helped Tony up until he could steady himself with one hand seemingly-casually-but-actually-structurally on Peter’s shoulder.

They dodged press with excuses of “the stain is going to set” until they got to the bathroom and locked the door.

Tony cupped his hands and filled them with cold water from the sink, once, twice, several times, while Peter actually DID try to get the stain out of his shirt. 

“I might have accidentally ruined this,” he confessed, “sorry.”

Tony rolled his eyes, allowing himself a minute to sit on the floor in a room that wasn’t loud and hot and filled with people. Peter sat next to him.

“Are you okay?” he asked. “Not just… you know, physically.”

Tony opened one eye suspiciously. 

“Thinking you’re gonna get me to talk about my feelings because my defenses are lowered?”

Peter shrugged. “It was worth a shot,” he admitted. 

Tony sighed. “Yeah,” he said after a moment, “I’ll live.”

Well, “alive” was as close to an emotion as Peter was likely to get, so he nodded.

“How long you think we can stay in here before people assume one of us fell in?” Tony asked, and Peter smiled sympathetically, too small, too warm for Tony to look at for more than a second. Peter cared too much.

“That’s up to you,” he replied. “We’re already playing up the fatherly angle tonight, so if the press starts to ask questions, we can just tell them you taught me how to shave while we were at it.”

Tony smirked and nudged Peter’s jaw with a closed fist. “Right, on what facial hair?”  With a groan, he let Peter help him to his feet. “Guess we’ve gotta get back out there, then,” he announced. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry that this ending sucks :/

When Tony and Peter arrived back at the table, most of the Avengers who’d been seated there were gone, replaced by a new group. 

Tony mustered up the energy to half-smile. “Looks like they’re taking shifts babysitting,” he whispered to Peter, who snorted. 

“We’re all taking shifts babysitting you all the time, Mr. Stark; you just don’t notice.” 

Tony swatted him lightly on the back of the head and sat heavily back down in the chair in the corner. 

“You throw a hell of a party, Mr. Stark, even you’re ill,” T’Challa observed. 

“Thank you,” Tony replied. “Just wait ‘til you see my funeral. I’ve got the works planned. Pyrotechnics, a flight system--”

“Will you be doing your own stunts?” Gamora asked.

Tony huffed a laugh through his nose.

“Sounds like a traumatic fanfare for everyone involved; very on-brand for you,” T’Challa said, and Shuri nodded. 

“Oh, kiddo, you and Peter were the ones who, uh… the sound system.”

Peter frowned at how little Tony had remembered from his explanation, but Shuri nodded. 

“Yes,” she said, “we disabled it. It’s going to take manual manipulation of the circuits to fix, which will near certainly require an electrician. And just to be thorough, I took out the cue-card display, as well.”

Tony shook her hand. “Smart kid,” he complimented, “stop by the Tower sometime. I’ve got a lab toys you might like to play with.”

Shuri bit her lip to keep from smiling. “No offense, Mr. Stark, but maybe you would rather have a look at my own lab. I might have a few toys you might enjoy playing with.”

Tony smirked. Spunk, moxie. He liked that. “I’m sure you do,” he admitted. “I’ve seen your work. I’m a fan.” He turned and gripped Peter’s shoulder like a father trying to embarrass his son at a block party and prevent him from escaping. “Not as big a fan as Pete, here,” he added, “but a fan.”

“Mr. Stark,” Peter whined, flushing pink. He was still trying to figure out whether he had a crush on Shuri or her workshop or both, and he didn’t need Tony complicating it. The moment of fun that Tony was able to have ended abruptly when his breath caught again and he found himself turning to the side and coughing into his sleeve again, the wheezing gasps he could manage in between barely doing anything to clear his head. A familiar hand was suddenly cupping his neck from behind, and he fought with his breathing for a bit longer before he was able to turn around and smile weakly.

“Rhodey,” he wheezed, “glad you could make it.”

Rhodey pat his back sympathetically. “You know I never miss the Maria Stark Gala,” he said.

He glanced down at his phone, typed out a message, then sucked a hissing breath through his teeth after the beep. 

“Tony, come on, 102.7?” he accused.

Thor looked confused. “How do your mobile phone tell you that information?” he asked, and Tony nodded. 

“Yeah, I’d like to know that, too,” he agreed.

Rhodey rolled his eyes. “The arc reactor monitors Tony’s vitals, and it’s hooked up to his AI. All I did was text his alert number to get them.” Bruce tilted the phone toward himself to see the numbers.

“Blood pressure’s on a slow downward fall, too, Tony,” he added quietly. 

Tony ignored that part. “That was through JARVIS,” Tony said, “I didn’t know FRIDAY gave you that information, too. What else do you two gossip about?”

Rhodey rolled his eyes. “Oh, you know, your weekly crushes, what episode of Scandal you’re on, whether or not you’re dying of some poison or infection and not telling anyone,” he said. Well, for all Rhodey had put up with in their years of friendship, that was probably fair.

“She thinks you’re cute, if you want me to set you up,” Tony said. Rhodey took a long breath, which Tony couldn’t help but feel jealous of, and turned to the rest of the ballroom. “I think Pepper keeps aspirin in her purse. I’m gonna find her.”

Tony’s hand shot out to grab him by the wrist, then sudden movement making his chest ache and launching him into another painful fit of coughing. “No,” he argued when he could, “don’t--we’re not--”

“Don’t worry,” Rhodey said softly, rubbing two small circles into Tony’s back, “I won’t tell her they’re for you.” They were on business terms only, right now, and this, while not exactly pleasure, wasn’t business.

The aspirin did very little for the pain and nothing for the cough, but at least it started to bring the fever down after about twenty minutes. 

For the remainder of the Gala, Tony didn’t even make an effort to look present or awake. He napped on the palm of his hand for most of it, and the others dared not disturb him--if he was sleeping, at least he was comfortable, and they weren’t about to ruin that.

Thor and Clint were the ones to lead him to the car, shielding him casually from the eyes of the press, and they put him immediately into bed with an alarming lack of argument from Tony.

 

When Tony stumbled out of his room the next morning, he felt worse than he had the day before. He needed water and badly, perhaps even SHIELD medical. Steve Rogers was sitting at his breakfast bar reading the paper on a tablet and spoke before Tony could even get a word in edgewise.

"So, the Gala went well," he began ominously. He was saying a good thing in a not-good voice. Tony didn't like that one bit and he didn't know where to begin. 

"Huh?" he asked eloquently. 

Steve shoved the tablet toward Tony to show a press-taken picture of him in the corner at the Gala, Natasha rubbing his back. He only blearily remembered that moment--he'd been coughing so hard that it was sending waves of pain through the arc reactor and Natasha had been counting in Russian to help him breathe through it. 

"один, два, три, четыре," she'd murmured over and over. If you can breathe for four seconds, you can breathe for another four. It's not too long and it's not too scary.

The article was titled "Rare Soft Side to Stark." Tony blinked. 

"Read the article," Steve instructed, but the screen was wavering too much in his vision to even see properly--what had he come down here for again? He was pretty sure it wasn't book club--and Steve huffed out a sigh. "Then I will."

He cleared his throat dramatically. 

"Billionaire Tony Stark shows a rare moment of true human emotion when a guest who wishes to remain anonymous donates a large sum to the Maria Stark Foundation." 

Tony frowned at the tablet, not understanding the question. "So?" he asked. He just wanted some damn water.

"'So,'" Steve replied unkindly, “I saw you last night; you weren’t choked up with emotion. You barely even left the corner.”

Tony blinked confusedly at him. “Look, I’d love to chat, but…” he cut himself off, not knowing what to say. 

Steve shook his head disappointedly. They were still on shaky ground from when they’d tried to kill one another, and despite both having begrudgingly apologized, something like that didn’t just vanish. They didn’t see eye, continued to not see eye to eye, and it was easy to see the worst in a person who’d shown you only their worst sides. “Just when I thought you were starting to change, Stark,” he disapproved, “you go right back to your old ways.” 

Tony swayed once dangerously. Breathing was hard, and he felt lightheaded and nauseated.  He shoved past Steve to get to the sink without a word, gagging unproductively over it for a moment.

“Are you… hungover?” Steve asked with a slightly concerned frown. He might not be on the best of terms with Tony right now, and he certainly wasn’t happy with how he’d acted last night, but one thing he thought he’d been doing better with was sobriety.

“Fuck off,” Tony bit, lashing out weakly as Steve tried to step forward. “Wasn’t drinking.” 

Steve’s stomach dropped. He hadn’t thought so. “You--then what’s going on?” he asked. He caught Tony under the arms just as his knees gave out and winced at the heat coming off him.

“Tony,” he tried for his attention, hostility dropped, “could someone have poisoned you at the Gala?” Tony shook his head, but before he could say anything, Clint and Natasha were barging into the kitchen. Clint dropped to his knees in front of the two.

“FRIDAY sent an alert,” he said quietly, “Jesus, Tony.” He was coughing now, so badly that he was gagging unrelated to the feeling that he was going to faint. 

“What’s going on?” Steve asked, but he was ignored as Natasha came into view, a small pill bottle in one hand and a glass of water in the other.

“I swear, I was only gone 20 minutes to get his prescription,” she muttered, beelining toward Tony and Clint. “FRIDAY, what’s wrong with him?”

“His temperature spiked from 103 to 104 in less than half an hour,” she explained. She sounded frantic, which was upsetting for a robot. “I need additional orders to alert medical personnel.”

“Yes; yes,” Clint cut in, “get SHIELD medical here as fast as you can.”

Tony was still fighting to breathe on his own kitchen floor, and had the nerve to apologize.

“S’rry,” he gasped between the breaths that he was able to choke in, “should’a got someone.”

“Stop apologizing, Tony,” Natasha reassured. Less than half an hour. She’d been gone twenty minutes, and he’d been sleeping when she’d left. “What were you talking about with Steve?” 

It wasn’t a question; it was an accusation.   
“The Gala,” Tony deflected. 

Steve floundered. “I didn’t know he was sick,” he claimed defensively. “He just went down, and--I would have done something earlier if I’d known.”

It was true. Steve would help any good person in need, but the fact was that he saw things in black and white, and Tony dealt in shades of grey. He’d assumed the worst of him when he’d come in, from the flippant attitude Tony had taken with him for the past few days to the lack of any emotion or gratitude he’d shown at his own mother’s memorial Gala--he hadn’t even made a speech--so Steve missed the signs that Tony needed help. 

“Just go let medical in when they arrive,” Clint intervened before Natasha started swingin’. She was protective of all the people she loved, but she wouldn’t hesitate to beat the pulp out of one friend for hurting another. “We’ve got this.” 

The next time Steve saw Tony was when SHIELD medical wheeled him out of his own home on a gurney, and the time after that was when he finally woke up after having fluid surgically drained from his chest. He wasn’t awake yet, but Steve sat at his bedside until he was.

Tony woke up reluctantly and with a pained groan. He blearily looked around the room, and when his eyes met Steve’s, he relaxed a little. 

“You’re awake,” Steve said. What else was he supposed to say?

“Against my better judgement,” Tony rasped. He reached for the glass of water on the nightstand next to him and grimaced as he swallowed it.

“Your throat’s probably sore,” Steve said. “You were on a ventilator for a day and a half.”

Tony’s eyes went wide. “How the hell long have I been--what was even--?”

“Do you remember being sick in the days preparing for the gala?” Steve asked. 

“Yeah, and I remember feeling a lot worse at the Gala itself, but about halfway through the night, things start to get kind of fuzzy.”

Steve nodded. “You woke up the next morning and collapsed in the kitchen,” he explained. “Tasha and Clint apparently took care of you all night. Clint took a break to sleep, and Nat went to get your antibiotics while you were sleeping, so you came to the kitchen to scare the hell out of me.”

Tony flushed. “I think I have a vague memory of that,” he said. 

“Makes sense,” Steve said. “You were in bad shape by then.”

“Did we… have a fight? In the kitchen? I feel like I’m mad at you, but I’ll have to let you off the hook if it was a drug-induced hallucination.”

The tips of Steve’s ears turned pink. “We fought,” he admitted. “And I’m sorry about that. I didn’t realize--any of this,” he gestured to the IV and the hospital bed and the arc reactor. “But I should have.”

Tony nodded. “Well, I barely remember it, so consider yourself absolved,” he granted with a small, exhausted flourish of his hand. “I’m still tired.”

“I’m sure you are,” Steve agreed. “You’re still on some heavy-duty meds, not to mention that the fever isn’t gone.”

Tony let his eyes slip closed. He had a lot of thank-you cards to write to quite a few of the Avengers, and he really didn’t know how he felt about Steve being the one in the room with him now, but he couldn’t keep those thoughts from slipping between his fingers as he drifted back to sleep. 


End file.
